It is no secret that Microsoft is doing whatever it can to eat away at Google's immense market share of the search market, with Bing being its most ambitious effort yet. Well, it seems the battle just got a whole lot dirtier, as The Financial Times has uncovered news that Microsoft has approached several news content providers, offering them money if they "de-index" their sites from Google.

Thats business in the US for you. "Why spend money to improve your product when you can spend money to hurt your competitor's product."

I think you've got that backwards. Without content to index, Google's business is ZILCH. Zip. Nada. It doesn't exist. But here's the problem: Google doesn't want to pay NewsCorp -- or practically anyone else -- for the content that makes Google rich. If I were a content provider as vast as NewsCorp, I'd tell Google to scr*w themselves, and try to work an exclusive deal with another search engine -- just like NewsCorp is doing. Believe me: This will get Google's attention. It's going to have to start sharing the revenue stream for premium content, whether it likes it or not.

I think you've got that backwards. Without content to index, Google's business is ZILCH. Zip. Nada.

Tom,
I think you've got it wrong. Without exposure by google, any website is ZILCH. zip. Nada. The *primary* reference to commercial websites is Google. Google. Google. Without google, any commercial website can expect it's traffic to drop significantly. Google is the dog. Everybody else are the tails. If you want to make money on the net you need to talk to Google. Here's an idea: why not ask Thom how much traffic to osnews.com comes from Google?

Tom,
I think you've got it wrong. Without exposure by google, any website is ZILCH. zip. Nada. The *primary* reference to commercial websites is Google. Google. Google. Without google, any commercial website can expect it's traffic to drop significantly. Google is the dog. Everybody else are the tails. If you want to make money on the net you need to talk to Google. Here's an idea: why not ask Thom how much traffic to osnews.com comes from Google?

You're missing the point. Newspapers are complaining that click-throughs from Google aren't translating into revenue. It doesn't matter how many people click-through from Google, if they aren't paying the rent. What newsmen want is a way to monetize, and Microsoft is reportedly offering them that. Even if the traffic goes down, they still get more than they were getting from Google. And, as I've mentioned previously, it's unlikely that Google will allow Microsoft to establish exclusive ties to NewsCorp and other commercial news orgs. It doesn't want to take the chance that Microsoft could cut it out of premium news content.

If I were a content provider as vast as NewsCorp, I'd tell Google to scr*w themselves

A bit peculiar, that argument. If you were a content provider and there would be no Google to deliver your content as results to user queries, then many users wouldn't know about your content. We're well past that age of the Internet where a few dozen sites provided contents that everyone knew about. Yes, you could advertise in printed media, tv, or street ads, but that wouldn't be as effective. Telling your cash cow to screw itself would mean screwing yourself, which I don't think you're really after.

A bit peculiar, that argument. If you were a content provider and there would be no Google to deliver your content as results to user queries, then many users wouldn't know about your content. We're well past that age of the Internet where a few dozen sites provided contents that everyone knew about. Yes, you could advertise in printed media, tv, or street ads, but that wouldn't be as effective. Telling your cash cow to screw itself would mean screwing yourself, which I don't think you're really after.

Most news sites on the Web are fed by a handful of premium news sources (AP, NewsCorp, etc). There is clearly synergy among those organizations to adjust the way that they've been distributing/licensing the news to downstream sites. When that happens, everybody that feeds on them will be affected. At best, they have to pay AP, NewsCorp et al (which is not a bad business); at worst, they don't get the news feeds anymore, AP, NewsCorp make their money through walled gardens, Google doesn't have anything to index (or indexes lower-quality news), and news search is driven through Bing. Moreover, the blogosphere, which primarily feeds on premium news and links directly to articles, would no longer be able to private access to the walled gardens. So, really, no one should pretend that changing distribution models would be a wash -- or a pin prick.